Opinion

From the critics

Community Activity

Comment

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.” As a companion piece to its famous Dickens counterpart, “Jacob T. Marley” is a fantastic addition to the Christmas novel canon. It employs the exact cadence of the wording of Dickens time, almost as if the master had taken it upon himself to pen this addition to “A Christmas Carol”. It digs into the iniquities of London in the 1800s, the evils of poverty, misery, unemployment, shoddy housing and corruption that Dickens noted. But more importantly it touches on the one significant human character of Dickens’s celebrated classic whose background remains a complete mystery: Ebenezer's former partner in business, Jacob Marley. Who was Marley? What formed his character? What led to his damnation and what drove his spirit to seek out Scrooge on that fateful day? All these questions and more are answered in this riveting novel that is a sheer pleasure to read. It is gripping, suspenseful, charming and meticulous in its delineation of this unknown book character whose death begins the tale of Scrooge’s redemption and forms one of the most memorable opening sentences ever written in a novel. This is nothing less than a masterpiece of storytelling and deserves to be read aloud, much as Dickens did with his illustrious book for captivated audiences.

ggbookreader
Jul 02, 2012

A delightful twist on the "Christmas Carol" story that was told in my youth is found in this tale. It was good to read the story from the beginning of how Jacob T. Marley influenced the life of his mentee. A lesson is revealed for us about how our behavior, attitude, and thoughts may impact on others. This was a well-written, well-developed novel, and just the right length to hold the readers' attention.